The importance of cleanliness in the health-care field has long been recognized. The practice of pre-surgical scrubbing by surgeons and other operating room personnel is probably the epitome of efforts to cleanse the hands and forearms of persons working in sterile environments. Because of the time and effort consumed in pre-surgical scrubbing, it is not surprising that various forms of apparatus have been devised in the past to assist in the cleansing operation.
And it has been recognized that, if economical apparatus could be devised to effectively cleanse the hands and forearms of surgeons, that apparatus likely would find use in other environments as well. For example, in the electronics and aerospace industries cleanliness of the workers is essential to the fabrication of contamination-free, reliable components. In restaurants and other establishments where food is handled or prepared, cleanliness of the food handlers is of utmost importance.
The provision of apparatus by which all such personnel could quickly, easily and effectively cleanse their hands and forearms would not only provide the means for achieving the desired cleanliness but could actually encourage and induce the personnel to practice cleanliness. People are simply more likely to use the apparatus if it reduces the effort required to achieve the desired degree of cleanliness.
Some of the past attempts to provide cleansing of the character described are represented by the apparatus disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,757,806, granted Sept. 11, 1973 to S. N. Bhaskar, et al for "Pulsating Hydrojet Lavage Device"; 3,918,987, granted Nov. 11, 1975 to R. J. Kopfer for "Surgeon Hand and Arm Scrubbing Apparatus"; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,402,331, granted Sept. 6, 1983 to T. J. Taldo, et al for "Portable Lavage Device".
The apparatus in all three of the aforementioned patents include chambers into which the user inserts his hands and forearms so that they may be subjected to streams of cleansing fluid from spray nozzles surrounding the chamber. A motor driven pump propels the cleansing fluid, which may be a mixture of water and soap or disinfectant, to the nozzles. In every instance the nozzles for these apparatus are stationary.
The apparatus of the Bhasker, et al and Taldo patents, subject the hands and forearms to pulsating jets of cleansing fluid. In theory, the compression-decompression effect or, so called, "trampoline" effect, on the skin is particularly effective in removing dirt and bacteria from the follicles and skin folds. However, the requirement for a heavy motor and pump to produce the pulsating jets of cleansing fluid causes the apparatus of these patents to be quite expensive. Such units also are quite noisy.
The idea of employing moving spray nozzles to treat all or some portion of the human anatomy has been advocated by some past inventors. For example, in the apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,844,278, granted Oct. 29, 1974 to B. Weider for "Hydrotherapeutic Massage Device" a frusto-conical basket of nozzles is adapted to subject a human breast to a hydrotherapeutic massage. In the apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,826,763, granted Mar. 18, 1958 to L. Bass for "Spray Bathing Apparatus With Scrubbers" the human body from the neck down is subjected to a washing spray from two rows of nozzles which orbit the body. Neither of these two patents contains any suggestion or indication that the apparatus therein disclosed could be adapted to cleanse just the hands and forearms of a person. Nor do they suggest that the apparatus there disclosed is capable of producing the degree of cleanliness required, for example, for pre-surgical scrubbings.
There continues to be a need for economical, but effective, apparatus for cleansing the hands and forearms of a user. Apparatus which is of sufficiently low cost to be affordably installed in a restaurant would be considered to be economical. Apparatus capable of cleansing the hands and forearms of a surgeon prior to surgery would certainly be considered to be effective.